Michael Skobelev

Holy Hieromartyr Michael Skobelev, a priest, was born on 14 November 1887 in the village of Bikalikha in Tver province, to the pious peasants Stepan and Evdokia Skobelev. His parents, striving to give him a good education, sent him to the teachers' school at Novgorod. After graduating he resolved to choose the path of service to the Orthodox Church. In 1910 he was ordained a deacon for the church in the village of Rameshki, to which his whole life and confessing struggle came to be bound.

At the beginning of 1918 it became clear that an age of persecution had come, with no end in sight. When many had already received a martyr's end and the earth was reddened with blood, in 1925 the deacon Michael was ordained a priest for the same church in which he had served fifteen years as deacon. At the beginning of a new stage of persecution, in 1929, Father Michael was arrested, accused of non-⁠payment of taxes and sentenced to two years in a labour camp and five years of exile. The harsh conditions did not break his will, and in 1935 he returned to serve in his church at Rameshki.

Persecution began again at once. The authorities, having no political charges, demanded of him a tax beyond his strength, so as to arrest him afterward for non-⁠payment. In 1936 they gave him the task of preparing fodder, with a quota deliberately set so that the priest could not meet it, then replaced the task with a payment toward the state loan. Father Michael could not pay even this money and appealed to the parishioners at the service to help him: "One storm has passed, God defended us and the authorities lifted the fodder task, but after calm weather the storm comes again, which I think we shall somehow manage and collect the money for the loan." In his Christmas sermon at the beginning of 1937, in the face of the unrestrained propaganda of atheism, he urged the parishioners not to believe blasphemers who say there is no God, though they reckon their years from the Nativity of Christ. These words were later presented as proof of the priest's gravest crime against the authorities.

In 1937 the authorities sought still more eagerly a reason to close the church. One of the reasons used by almost all the heads of village councils and district committees was to close churches on the pretext of the dilapidated state of the building and the need for repairs. When in June 1937 such a proposal arose about the church at Rameshki, the parishioners went to the district committee to defend it. The authorities yielded, but on 17 July they arrested Father Michael, and then the church was closed under the pretext of the absence of a priest.

Immediately after arrest he was taken to the Tver prison and cruelly interrogated. The investigator asked whether he admitted guilt of systematic anti-⁠Soviet agitation aimed at undermining the existing order; he answered that he did not. By all appearances the investigator used torture which made further questioning impossible, but when Father Michael came round, the interrogation continued. He was told that on 28 November 1935, at confession, he had agitated against the collective farms, urging the farmers to leave them; that on 5 July 1936 he had preached in church a sermon expressing anti-⁠Soviet views against the procurements and the loan; that at the end of 1936 he had discredited the central, regional and district newspapers, calling them lies; that on 7 January 1937 he had given an anti-⁠Soviet sermon, discrediting the district leadership, the order and its leaders; and that at the beginning of 1937, in connection with events in Spain, he had carried on defeatist agitation against the Spanish popular front and the Soviet government. To all he answered that he had carried on no anti-⁠Soviet agitation and did not admit guilt.

On 27 September the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. The priest Michael Skobelev was shot on 1 October 1937. He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 1 October, the day of his death, in the new style, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (a movable day) and, on 18 July, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver (a movable day).